Gay Docs Grow Up at the NYLGFF

Gay Docs Grow Up at the NYLGFF

The New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival got off to a chic start lastThursday with Lisa Cholodenko’s debut feature “High Art.” The party wasmore entertaining than the rather somber Sundance award-winning film,(Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award). Attracting the paparazzi, “Art” star,Ally Sheedy, was joined by both her husband and her lesbian mother.“High Art” soundtrack band, Shutter To Think performed while the wellbehaved crowd sipped Sidecars. Until the clock struck one, and securityquickly cleared the building.

One might expect more glitz from a queer film fest in New York City. Butglamour is hard to come by in antiseptic venues like the Public Theaterwhere the chairs do not feel secure, and an auditorium at the NewSchool, which feels more like a church than a classroom. If anything, itmakes the film have to work that much harder to hold the audiencesattention.

Maybe that’s a good thing, because this year’s festival has had somevery good films; many of which were documentaries. A gay and lesbianfilm festival is inherently political, yet 1998 may be the year gaydocumentaries come of age. The best docs in this year’s festival found abalance between the story they were telling and the politics behind it.One of the best examples was “Yin & Yang: Gender in Chinese Cinema,” byHong Kong action director Stanley Kwan. The video combines interviewswith Hong Kong directors, Kwan’s autobiography and the history ofgender-representation in Chinese cinema. Christopher Doyle’scinematography and the frank discussion of homoeroticism in recent HongKong cinema is as exciting as it is educational.

From the other side of the globe came, “Woubi Dahling” by LaurentBocahut of the Ivory Coast. “Woubi” is a surprisingly upbeat portrait ofgay life in the Ivory Coast. Nobody seems to mind as long as “woubis”(effeminate men) pair up with “yossis” (masculine men). The arrangementswould be snickered at in the States, but the eloquence with which theyexplain themselves silenced any dissenters in the audience.Documentaries have a magical way of transporting an audience intouncharted territory and “Woubi Dahling” deserves the opportunity toreach audiences outside of the gay festival circuit.

Jeff Dupre’s “Out of the Past” is getting a lot of mileage outside ofgay festivals, thanks to a documentary prize at this year’s Sundance.And any and all attention is well deserved. “Out of the Past” begins asa straightforward doc about Kelli Peterson, the lesbian high schoolstudent who took on the state of Utah in order to start a gay/straightclub at her high school. It then expands to include other pioneers in thegayrights movement. I’m not sure how, but it all works together so well, somuch so that I was left awed and inspired.

Awe-inspiring is also the feeling I got from Mark Rappaport’s latestHollywood-deconstruction, “The Silver Screen-Color Me Lavender.”Rappaport must have watched every film ever made in Hollywood to compileis 103 minutes of clips. Unlike his previous films that focused on oneactor, Rock Hudson or Jean Seberg, “The Silver Screen” covers Bob Hope,Carry Grant, Jerry Lewis and Danny Kaye, not to mention a brief Europeansegment on Jean Cocteau and Luchino Visconti. Although the film can feellike a very long graduate seminar in queer theory, there is anundeniable pleasure in watching its deconstructive playfulness.

Queer veterans Barbara Hammer and Rosa von Praunheim contributedhistorical documentaries to this years festival. Hammer’s “FemaleCloset” is an informative if slightly educational film about threelesbian artists. Hammer should be commended for not shying away from thehard questions regarding race and class. Praunheim’s “Gay Courage: 100years of the Gay Movement” is another epic investigation in the historyof gay culture and the filmmaker’s place in it.

Less exciting, but still intriguing was “Pierre et Gilles, Love Stories“about the famed French photographers. It may look awful, but MichaelAho’s low-budget video will give you more information about the artiststhan you ever thought you wanted to know. Catherine Deneuve, Nina Hagenand Jean-Paul Gaultier appear in support for the post-pop artists.

The Festival is more than half way over, and although there has not beena party to outshine opening night, the films seem to be getting better.Still to come are Catherine Saalfield’s documentary about brutal L.A.performance artist Ron Athey, Jose Torrealba’s circuit party doc, “GotTo Be There” and club kid killer expose, “Party Monster.”